Space Hero Saturdays PLANET COMICS "Fero: Planet Detective"

This Halloween Season, We Give You the Truth about a Major Threat to Humanity!

We thought now is the right time to reveal the awesome secret about vampires and werewolves kept from humanity for centuries!

They're from Pluto!

Really!

While Fero did return in the next issue of Planet Comics, the "vampires and werewolves from Pluto" plotline didn't!

In fact, Fero was, without explanation, now an "interplanetary detective" in a future version of New York City, and stayed there for the remainder of his four-issue run.
This premiere appearance in Fiction House's Planet Comics #5 (1940) is credited to "Allison Brant", a pseudonym used by writer/artist Al Bryant who did almost 400 comics stories during his decade-long career.

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Grimm Fairy Tales presents Vampires and Werewolves

Space Hero Saturdays CRUSADER FROM MARS "Mission Through Space"

Lars of Mars wasn't the only Martian Sent to Fight Evil on Earth by Jerry (Superman) Siegel!

This guy, along with a female "friend and companion" was sent to Earth to do similar work...but for a very different reason!

If I follow the "logic" of this concept correctly, the Martians send a proven murderer (along with someone who may be either an accessory to murder or an innocent who had nothing to do with the crime except having a murderer obsessed with her) to fight evil on Earth.
Send a convicted killer with emotional control issues (and advanced weaponry) to a primitive planet and tell him to clean it up?
And then, when he screws up. send a fleet of flying saucers in to straighten out the mess.
(Martians apparently don't have a non-interference Prime Directive.)
Also note that the American military seems to be made up of idiot bureaucrats!
The writer for this premiere tale from Crusader from Mars #1 (1952) is unknown, but probably is the book's editor, Jerry (Superman) Siegel, who co-created another short-lived Martian crime-fighter, Lars of Mars, the year before.

The artist is believed to be Marvin Stein, but the layouts have a strong Jack Kirby feel to them.
Considering Stein was doing a lot of work for the Simon/Kirby studio at the time, and Jack was reputed to be very generous in terms of helping his friends, it seems likely he provided roughs for Stein to render full pencils and inks over.
BTW, you may note that Tarka wears a very Superman-style costume in this tale, but on the cover, and in the next (and last) issue, the colors are reversed.

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Pre-Code Classics

Lars of Mars / Crusader from Mars

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Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Xog on Earth!"

Xog, the Ruler of Saturn, Didn't Take Kindly to Our Hero Invading His Planet...

...(even though it was in self-defense) and he's about to return the "courtesy"...with interest!

Fawcett's Captain Midnight #65 (1948) brings Xog: Ruler of Saturn!to Earth in a threat so big the US Army has to get involved!
But the Sentinel of the Spaceways can't allow that to happen again!

He'll have a plan for a final confrontation against the sinister Saturnian on the first Saturday of November!

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Captain Midnight Archives

Volume 2

Captain Midnight Saves the World!

(Which includes this story)

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Space Hero Saturdays SPACE DETECTIVE COMICS "Cargo from Mars"

A non-sensationalistic title hides a damned good detective story...

...that appeared in back of a science fiction detective's comic book!

Illustrated by Gerald McCann, this well-written little tale by a currently-unknown author was hidden in the back of this 1952 Avon Comics comic book...

...about the ongoing adventures of a private investigator "fighting crime in a future time"!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Space Hero Saturdays ALIEN WORLDS "Few and the Far"

In space, things aren't always as they seem to appear...

...as this never-reprinted tale from Pacific's Alien Worlds #1 (1982) demonstrates not once, but twice...

Admit it.

Writer Bruce Jones and artist Al Williamson fooled you!

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Al Williamson Adventures
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Space Hero Saturdays ROCKET KELLY "Mr Weather's Revenge"

As a Heat Wave Bakes the Continental US...

...we thought you'd enjoy a Space Hero Saturday story involving something cooling...like glaciers!

Gotta admit, a smiling Sun is not what you'd expect in the final panel of an ostensibly-serious strip!

This never-reprinted tale from Fox's Rocket Kelly #4 (1946) was credited to "Ted Small", a Fox in-house pseudonym used on all the Rocket Kelly stories (despite several obviously-different writers and artists) along with a number of one-shot features!
Illustrated by Arnold Hicks, this story is from the third (and final) version of the strip, after being a WWII aviator with a souped-up fighter-bomber...then a WWII aviator who accidentally ends up aboard an alien spacecraft...to an ex-WWII aviator whose genius father gives him his own creation to fly around in and keep the Earth safe.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

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